Frog Design founder discusses the creative process that came to define Apple.

Hartmut Esslinger—whose name you may not recognize—had a significant impact on Apple in the 1980s. The designer founded the firm Frog Design, which has counted Apple, Sony, NEC, SAP, and Olympus among its clients, and he is credited with helping to define the "snow white" design language that characterized Apple's products beginning with the Apple IIc and early Mac models and carrying on until 1990. But the process of creating that design language eventually transformed Apple from a computer company producing several disparate products into a formidable consumer electronics giant 30 years later.

Esslinger recalls how the initial change happened at Apple in 1982 in his new book, Design Forward: Creative Strategy at the Core of Sustainable Change. The book is set to be released in the US on January 13, but it launched internationally in early December. Online magazine Designboom got an early copy from Esslinger and shared a bit of the story of how Apple first began to make design as a holistic, defining characteristic of the company:

In 1982, Apple was in its sixth year of existence, and Steve Jobs, Apple's cofounder and chairman, was twenty-eight years old. Steve, intuitive and fanatical about great design, realized that the company was in crisis.

"I want Apple's design not just to be the best in the computer industry, but to be the very best in the entire world," Jobs claimed.

With the exception of the aging Apple IIe, the company's products were failing against IBM's PCs. And they were all ugly, especially the Apple III and soon to be released Apple Lisa.

The company's previous CEO, Michael Scott, had created different business divisions for each product line, including accessories such as monitors and memory drives. Each division had its own head of design and developed its products the way it wanted to. As a result, Apple's products shared little in the way of a common design language or overall synthesis.

In essence, bad design was both the symptom and a contributing cause of Apple's corporate disease. Steve's desire to end the disjoined approach gave birth to a strategic design project that would revolutionize Apple's brand and product lines, change the trajectory of the company's future, and eventually redefine the way the world thinks about and uses consumer electronics and communication technologies.

Designboom also has several pictures of various Mac prototypes, like the "Baby Mac" (pictured above) that formed the basis of the "snow white" design language of Apple products throughout the late 80s. Be sure to check out some of the various ideas that Esslinger and Apple explored, including the "Americana" concept (below) that perhaps thankfully never saw the light of day.

Enlarge/ The "Americana" design concept for the original Macintosh, inspired by Studebaker automobiles, Electrolux appliances, and the iconic Coca-Cola bottle.

I don't know-while that Americana design wasn't fantastic, I would have loved for portrait displays to have been much wider spread (I had one for years after most people would have kept it because it was perfect for writing papers). Given how much of the computer work was being done for print it would have been a boon for everyone involved if that had been much more widely available.

I don't know-while that Americana design wasn't fantastic, I would have loved for portrait displays to have been much wider spread (I had one for years after most people would have kept it because it was perfect for writing papers). Given how much of the computer work was being done for print it would have been a boon for everyone involved if that had been much more widely available.

I agree. I sometimes wonder if the current fetishization of widescreen monitors isn't going to backfire and bring back the portrait monitor, or at least a flatscreen that can swivel vertically.

The company's previous CEO, Michael Scott, had created different business divisions for each product line, including accessories such as monitors and memory drives. Each division had its own head of design and developed its products the way it wanted to. As a result, Apple's products shared little in the way of a common design language or overall synthesis.

With the exception of the aging Apple IIe, the company's products were failing against IBM's PCs. And they were all ugly, especially the Apple III and soon to be released Apple Lisa.

In my opinion, this is a very misleading sentence. In 1982, "Apple's products" were not failing against IBM's PCs, however the Apple III, meant to be Apple's business micro, wasn't doing well, mainly because it was unreliable. Additionally, the companies products were not ugly. It may well be that Steve Jobs wanted to improve the design of Apple's products, but he had been personally involved in the designs up to that point, and they were not terrible. In fact, they looked better than most other microcomputer products.

Jerry Manock and Terry Oyama were responsible for the major design work on the original Macintosh.

Frog Design did come on in 1982, but the Babymac concept shown at the top wasn't in the pipeline until 1985-1986.

The other concept shown was called Doc at that time, as in one of the seven dwarfs. The design language concept at that point was called the "wega look", along with another series of concepts called the hamburger look, due to their layered elements. Both of these were what merged into the pure snow white typified by the babymac, and the Apple IIc.

Check out the AppleDesign book by Paul Kunkel if you want the whole story.

Frog Design made this one for Amiga Technologies in 1995, which of course thenpromptly went bankrupt after producing the prototypes, just to really rub it in, because god apparently hates the Amiga and everyone involved must fail.

I don't think it looks like a vacuum cleaner. And the specs were in fact awesome.

edit:

The Commodore PET looks like a cashregister, even the keyboard. It's not hard for Apple to look good with that kind of competetion.

They already have those? Swivel mounts and then you can set the orientation of the LCD in System Preferences or whatever settings panel Windows uses to set resolution.

In Windows most graphics cards let you simply type ctrl-alt-arrow, and the system preferences pane in OS X is pretty simply too.

You can even get fairly cheap VESA mounts on sites like Monoprice now, but the problem is that reasonably priced TN monitors look terrible when they are rotated 90°. However, it looks like IPS monitors are increasingly becoming popular.

I remember using a grayscale portrait monitor attached to a Mac IIcx, and the layout really was nice for writing. As you can see in this photo the profile actually really resembles the absurd "Americana" example from the article.

With the exception of the aging Apple IIe, the company's products were failing against IBM's PCs. And they were all ugly, especially the Apple III and soon to be released Apple Lisa.

In my opinion, this is a very misleading sentence. In 1982, "Apple's products" were not failing against IBM's PCs, however the Apple III, meant to be Apple's business micro, wasn't doing well, mainly because it was unreliable. Additionally, the companies products were not ugly. It may well be that Steve Jobs wanted to improve the design of Apple's products, but he had been personally involved in the designs up to that point, and they were not terrible. In fact, they looked better than most other microcomputer products.

I don't agree that it's "misleading" per se. Keep in mind this is Esslinger's opinion of the situation, not necessarily Apple's. But the Apple II was beginning to show its age even in 1982—by then, six years old—as it was competing with the likes of the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and the Atari 1200XL. The Commodore 64 in particular outsold the Apple II significantly throughout the later half of the 80s.

And while Apple's computers of the time looked better than most of the competition, they certainly don't look as good compare to later frog design styles.

Frog Design made this one for Amiga Technologies in 1995, which of course thenpromptly went bankrupt after producing the prototypes, just to really rub it in, because god apparently hates the Amiga and everyone involved must fail.

I don't think it looks like a vacuum cleaner. And the specs were in fact awesome.

edit:

The Commodore PET looks like a cashregister, even the keyboard. It's not hard for Apple to look good with that kind of competetion.

Ugh. I remember those Amiga days (mostly fondly) but that monstrosity looks like one of the bugs in the Lost In Space movie.

With the exception of the aging Apple IIe, the company's products were failing against IBM's PCs. And they were all ugly, especially the Apple III and soon to be released Apple Lisa.

In my opinion, this is a very misleading sentence... It may well be that Steve Jobs wanted to improve the design of Apple's products, but he had been personally involved in the designs up to that point, and they were not terrible. In fact, they looked better than most other microcomputer products.

Agreed. In the early 1980s before the Mac, I recall going to a computer lab at a Naval base with a friend of mine who was a software engineer. There were several types of personal computers lined up at different workstations including a couple of Apple IIs.

And my friend made the comment which I thought was pretty obvious; that using direct comparisons with different PCs, the Apple II had a very good looking design.

I remember using a grayscale portrait monitor attached to a Mac IIcx, and the layout really was nice for writing. As you can see in this photo the profile actually really resembles the absurd "Americana" example from the article.

Speaking of the IIcx, I always liked the appearance of the Quadra 700, which was derived from the often-used vertical positioning of the IIcx/IIci:

But the Apple II was beginning to show its age even in 1982—by then, six years old—as it was competing with the likes of the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and the Atari 1200XL. The Commodore 64 in particular outsold the Apple II significantly throughout the later half of the 80s.

That was mainly due to the fact that the Commodore 64 was much, much cheaper than the Apple IIe it competed against. And look where all those cheap sales got Commodore...

With the exception of the aging Apple IIe, the company's products were failing against IBM's PCs. And they were all ugly, especially the Apple III and soon to be released Apple Lisa.

In my opinion, this is a very misleading sentence. In 1982, "Apple's products" were not failing against IBM's PCs, however the Apple III, meant to be Apple's business micro, wasn't doing well, mainly because it was unreliable. Additionally, the companies products were not ugly. It may well be that Steve Jobs wanted to improve the design of Apple's products, but he had been personally involved in the designs up to that point, and they were not terrible. In fact, they looked better than most other microcomputer products.

Yes, but this is Steve Jobs we're talking about. Looking better isn't enough, pushing the design envelope and having a brand is a must. The Lisa in particular, being his pet project, must have really stuck in his craw given that they couldn't make it look completely unlike a computer. (And that was always Jobs' goal, to make your computer not look or feel like one.)

That was mainly due to the fact that the Commodore 64 was much, much cheaper than the Apple IIe it competed against. And look where all those cheap sales got Commodore...

Uh, it made Commodore the most successful computer company.

That's an odd definition of "most successful"

No it's not.

I think your grasp of history is slightly flawed here, or you're trying to backpeddle to make a different point.

The Commodore 64 was immensely successful, more so than any other computer ever, and made Commodore a fortune. That they later managed to fuck that up was impressive, but had nothing to do with the Commodore 64.

Frog Design made this one for Amiga Technologies in 1995, which of course thenpromptly went bankrupt after producing the prototypes, just to really rub it in, because god apparently hates the Amiga and everyone involved must fail.

I don't think it looks like a vacuum cleaner. And the specs were in fact awesome.

edit:

The Commodore PET looks like a cashregister, even the keyboard. It's not hard for Apple to look good with that kind of competition.

Frog Design made this one for Amiga Technologies in 1995, which of course thenpromptly went bankrupt after producing the prototypes, just to really rub it in, because god apparently hates the Amiga and everyone involved must fail.

I don't think it looks like a vacuum cleaner. And the specs were in fact awesome.

edit:

The Commodore PET looks like a cashregister, even the keyboard. It's not hard for Apple to look good with that kind of competetion.

Except you're ignoring the Vic-20, C64, TI/99, and the later Ataris.

When you consider ergonomics, the IBM PC isn't really that bad. It had a decent detachable keyboard that didn't suffer for being built into the main unit.

I don't know-while that Americana design wasn't fantastic, I would have loved for portrait displays to have been much wider spread (I had one for years after most people would have kept it because it was perfect for writing papers). Given how much of the computer work was being done for print it would have been a boon for everyone involved if that had been much more widely available.

They sold portrait monitors in the 80's... although they were a niche market mostly for Mac DTP use.

Reflecting on it today, I use my iPad in portrait mode about 90% of the time.

I loved the Iici/x/quadra700 design. It would be neat if the new Mac Pro were to have a design along those lines.

ws3 wrote:

randallz wrote:

I remember using a grayscale portrait monitor attached to a Mac IIcx, and the layout really was nice for writing. As you can see in this photo the profile actually really resembles the absurd "Americana" example from the article.

Speaking of the IIcx, I always liked the appearance of the Quadra 700, which was derived from the often-used vertical positioning of the IIcx/IIci:

I don't know-while that Americana design wasn't fantastic, I would have loved for portrait displays to have been much wider spread (I had one for years after most people would have kept it because it was perfect for writing papers). Given how much of the computer work was being done for print it would have been a boon for everyone involved if that had been much more widely available.

They sold portrait monitors in the 80's... although they were a niche market mostly for Mac DTP use.

Reflecting on it today, I use my iPad in portrait mode about 90% of the time.

It's very clear that as the iMac evolved it took on ever more of the TAM design until it reaches rather close to it today. I realize the colors and material are different, but that's just about current color material choices rather than a significant part of the design.

"The "Americana" design concept for the original Macintosh, inspired by Studebaker automobiles, Electrolux appliances, and the iconic Coca-Cola bottle."

Um, is it just me? I don't see "Coca-Cola bottle" in there anywhere! Studebaker, maybe the "grill lines" (or whatever they are near the bottom), Electrolux, possibly the tall stacked shapes...but Coca-Cola bottle, no, not buying it.

They sold portrait monitors in the 80's... although they were a niche market mostly for Mac DTP use.Reflecting on it today, I use my iPad in portrait mode about 90% of the time.

Radius Pivot. I loved that thing.

Folks, pivot monitors are not locked away in some long-lost era. If you loved them that much, there are several monitors in the $600-$2000 range, with color specs designed for high-end graphics/photography, that pivot today, for the same reasons and audience as during the Mac DTP revolution. Many of those models are by NEC and Eizo.

Quite interesting. Microsoft has lost even the very last bit of innovation. All its products are plain boring, contain nothing new and deliver no increase in productivity. Win8 though it's new is an epic fail for many many reason.Apple on the other hand has created a new spirit in consumer electronics. Its products are full of innovations and look great ... but ...Apple can't continue delivering such innovative products over the long term. It's simply impossible to invent a new and successful product category every 3 o 4 years. The iPhone while the greatest invention since cell phones is hardly anything special today. Galaxy S III plays in the same league. The iPad while wonderful when it was newly introduced shows signs of an aging product delivering absolutely nothing new. Just some minor improvements. Doubling the screen resolution is not really an innovation over the long term and it still has no multi user support.

That said ... Apple is doomed while Microsoft can easily survive the next 15 years with its boring and outdated products simply because there is no real alternative. Win8 failed but Win9 will make up for it. MS Office totally overloaded, hard to operate for the average user and full of flaws faces not a single serious competitor.

I'd say Apple is already beyond its climax. In 5 years from now Apple will face the same problems it had 15 years ago. Unfortunately this time there is no Steven Jobs around the corner to save the company. Apple will share Nokias fate.

They sold portrait monitors in the 80's... although they were a niche market mostly for Mac DTP use.Reflecting on it today, I use my iPad in portrait mode about 90% of the time.

Radius Pivot. I loved that thing.

Folks, pivot monitors are not locked away in some long-lost era. If you loved them that much, there are several monitors in the $600-$2000 range, with color specs designed for high-end graphics/photography, that pivot today, for the same reasons and audience as during the Mac DTP revolution. Many of those models are by NEC and Eizo.

I find it actually curious that this isn't a standard feature with monitors since it adds almost nothing to the cost of a display. And for many things (except photos and video and pane-infested IDEs) it's even much better than a landscape widescreen display. Especially web browsing and text editing is much better with more vertical elbow room.

I find it actually curious that this isn't a standard feature with monitors since it adds almost nothing to the cost of a display. And for many things (except photos and video and pane-infested IDEs) it's even much better than a landscape widescreen display. Especially web browsing and text editing is much better with more vertical elbow room.

I would think it was the opposite, because adding a pivot saddles your product with the one thing that will increase the production costs of a mass-produced product: Moving parts. I think this is why you see pivot monitors on upper-end models. The price has the margin to do it.

But yeah, in some ways pivot monitors are more needed today than ever. When the display industry went widescreen, suddenly everyone working on vertically oriented projects got a little more screwed. Vertical photos, office documents, and web pages have more wasted space than ever on the sides of a widescreen display...until you rotate the monitor. It was less of a problem with the old 4:3 shape that was much closer to square. The one time a widescreen monitor helps me with vertical stuff is when I need to see two pages or photos side by side, or one document with a bunch of tool palettes next to it.

While "design" (quotes because it's incredibly arrogant for the exterior or superficial design guys to appropriate that term, which also belongs to the engineers, der) is certainly an Apple strength, it's pretty arrogant (that word again) for him to attribute any significant amount of the failure of the Apple III and Lisa to exterior design.

I was around then, and I can tell you that the external design had very little to do with the success or failure of those products, and even that of the original Macs. At the very least, the IBM PC's success against them certainly wasn't due to any excessive beauty! The Apple III failed because of *engineering* problems, and the Lisa failed because it was expensive, dog slow, and the UI software hadn't been sufficiently thought through. Likewise, the original Mac succeeded mainly on the strength of the UI design, which was heavily borrowed from Xerox PARC (via the first-gen Lisa) and refined by Apple. The Mac UI authors should get most of the Mac credit, for simplifying and "consumerizing" the Xerox UI model.

Sorry Frog dudes, but while you did a great job, it was superficial relative to the impact of the really hard engineering work (or lack of it) under the covers.